Witnessing an uncondemned taboo trade-off triggers compensatory moral cleansing in observers.
Evidence
Taboo trade-offs are also contaminating. To observe a taboo trade-off without condemning it is to become complicit in the transgression. The hospital-administrator study revealed the highest level of moral cleansing (willingness to support organ-donation campaigns) when people thought the decision-maker had not only made the wrong choice in the taboo-trade-off condition but made it after thinking about it for a long time. — Philip E. Tetlock, Thinking the unthinkable, 26
Categorization
- XREF: Aligned with the reader’s interest in group solidarity maintenance — here moral outrage acts as a social mechanism pressuring members to perform purity gestures. — connects to: Uncommitted taboo thoughts can contaminate and trigger symbolic moral cleansing — Philip E. Tetlock, Thinking the unthinkable: sacred values…, 13; Mere contemplation of sacred trade-offs produces opposite moral reactions for taboo versus tragic cases — Philip E. Tetlock, Thinking the unthinkable: sacred values…, 24
- QUESTION: Does moral cleansing function as a way to reassert one’s own group membership/commitment after a contaminating exposure? Worth chasing for the solidarity research.